The WNBA Is Making History, As Well As A Future

David Berri
, ContributorI cover sports and economics, including events on and off the fieldOpinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

(Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Sylvia Fowles (34) of the Minnesota Lynx and Candace Parker (3) and Nneka Ogwumike of the Los Angeles Sparks are working to claim a championship. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

History will be made Wednesday night in the WNBA finals. For the second consecutive year, the Minnesota Lynx and the Los Angeles Sparks ― the two top teams in the league ― are meeting in a deciding game to determine the WNBA champion.

So far, the finals have been almost exactly even. Both teams have won two games. In addition, across these first four games, the series is nearly deadlocked in points scored. The Lynx scored 298 points in the first four contests. The Sparks, meanwhile, have scored 297 points.

Not surprisingly, each of these dominant teams is led by dominant players. The most productive player on the Lynx is Sylvia Fowles, who was named league MVP this season. Fowles is joined by Maya Moore, who was the 2014 WNBA MVP. Fowles and Moore combined to produce 16.1 wins (calculation explained here) for the Lynx, or all but 10 of the team's 27 regular-season wins.

The Lynx's opponent also has two former MVPs on the roster. Nneke Ogwumike won the award in 2016 while Candace Parker was league MVP in 2008 and 2013. Ogwumike and Parker combined to produce 15.4 wins for a Sparks team that won 26 games this year. So similar to Fowles and Moore, the top two players on the Sparks essentially produced all but 10 of the team's wins.

So this is a historical match in the WNBA. We have two of the best teams in league history, led by four of the best players in league history. And the star power of these two dominant teams has certainly drawn an audience. Each of the games in Minnesota has drawn more than 11,000 fans while each game in Los Angeles has drawn 13,500 fans.

Wait … is that it?

NBA teams drew an average of 17,884 fans per contest during the 2016-17 regular season. So how can a clash between two of the greatest teams in WNBA history draw less than an average NBA team during the regular season?

A serious fan of the NBA can easily answer this question by just thinking about NBA history. The NBA is about to embark on the 72nd season in league history. But let's return to the league's 19th season. Back in 1965, legendary Boston Celtics announcer Johnny Most made this particular call:

This call, from the seventh game of the Eastern Conference finals, is an iconic moment in NBA history. The Celtics faced the Philadelphia 76ers in the series, the fourth time Bill Russell faced Wilt Chamberlain in the NBA playoffs. Before Russell left the NBA in 1969, these two faced off four more times. Yes, Russell's Celtics defeated Chamberlain's teams seven times. Nevertheless, these contests helped define the early history of the NBA.

This particular loss was especially heartbreaking for Chamberlain. The Sixers were down by only a point with five seconds remaining. But Hal Greer's inbound pass never reached a Sixers player.

By 1972, Bill Russell was no longer a player. So the league Russell played in was actually smaller ― in terms of average attendance ― than the current WNBA. Although Russell never saw the crowds ― or money ― seen by today's NBA stars, the current NBA players owe a debt to the past stars that came before.

The attendance numbers we see in the early history of the NBA or today's WNBA are not surprising. Professional sports leagues struggle initially. One explanation for these struggles is that when a league begins, there is obviously no history.

Why is history important? Today, fans of the Celtics or the 76ers think of their team in terms of all the great players and teams that came before. But in the early history of any league, such history doesn't exist, and there is no reference point to help a person appreciate what they are seeing.

For example, the sports media and fans often talked about Michael Jordan when they discussed Kobe Bryant. In turn, the play of Jordan reminded fans of Julius Erving. And Dr. J reminded people of Elgin Baylor in the 1960s. Likewise, one can trace the history of big men from Russell and Chamberlain in the 1960s to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the 1970s and 1980s and then on to Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, Shaquille O'Neal and the top big men today.

The top teams and top players in the past established the history that defines today's performances. Following this argument, the future teams in the WNBA will be evaluated relative to the Lynx and Sparks teams we see now. Likewise, future players will be evaluated in terms of how they compare to Fowles, Moore, Ogwumike, Parker and other WNBA stars today.

Right now, the current WNBA stars are not unlike Russell and Chamberlain. Given what we know of NBA history, future generations will marvel at the play of these WNBA stars. And perhaps those generations will be surprised to learn how few actually saw these players play.

Of course, you don't have to be among that group. You have opportunity on Wednesday night to watch what future WNBA fans will likely consider an important game in league history. In other words, you can be similar to the "mob" that saw Havlicek steal the ball. All you have to do is simply turn on your TV!